by Cameron Jace
38
ENTRANCE, WESTMINSTER PALACE, BRITISH PARLIAMENT HEADQUARTERS
The Pillar is pushing me in a wheelchair. We're heading toward the Palace of Westminster's entrance. This is going to be crazy.
I am wearing my tattered nightgown from the asylum and am tucked in the wheelchair. I have my legs crossed awkwardly, and I wear one sock with a hole in it. My other foot is dirty with mud, and my hand is hanging loose to my side. To add some drama to the madness, I raise my other hand in the air, as if I am a marionette left hanging by a thread. My hair looks as if it was fried and dried, sticking out like spikes everywhere. It's topped with a flower-patterned hat, the kind you put on toddlers.
The hat's laces are knitted like shoelaces around my neck, but that's not the best part. White liquid is drizzling from my mouth. People think it's vomit, but it's actually marshmallows. I stuff my mouth with them discreetly, chew them until they are mushy enough, and then let them drizzle out from between my lips. It was the Pillar's idea.
I am doing my best not to laugh again, acting like a total loon, as the Pillar wheels me across the Parliament entrance. The guards stop him. They speak politely since I look pathetic, and he looks like a homeless dad on a pension he's never collected.
"Good morning, government!" The Pillar salutes them. He is wearing blue overalls with nothing underneath, and big torn shoes. His peeling skin shows on his shoulder and makes him look even worse. The tattered parts of his overalls are sewn together with pieces of cloth. One of them is the badge of the Liverpool football team, and the other is the flag of the United Kingdom, with the Queen smoking a hookah on it.
"Sir, you can't walk past this line." The guards are extremely considerate. The people around us aren't. Those in expensive suits are trying to get away from us as quickly as possible. People driving by are just laughing at us mad people.
The Pillar flashes my Insanity Certificate as if it's a map to Treasure Island. With the bandana on his head and the silver tooth, it suits him well. "This is a certificate from the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum stating that my daughter is insane," the Pillar says. "She is cuckoo in the head. Loony in the toony. Nana banana." He begins to cry. "She is all I got." When he cries, my wheelchair shakes. He is that intense. I can't stop myself from laughing, so I drool more marshmallows to hide it. Sweet marshmallows.
"Sir," the guard repeats. "We're very sorry about your daughter. But you have to leave. This is a government building."
"I know what it is," the Pillar snaps and flashes another paper that means nothing, probably some doctor's prescription. "This is permission to meet Margaret Kent."
"What?" The guard looks puzzled.
"My daughter is dying. She has Jub Jub disease. It's a contagious infection that comes from tropical birds." The Pillar flaps his elbows like a bird's wings.
The guards back away from me. I push the limits and reach for them, like a desperate beggar. "Pleath!" I say. A woman nearby starts to sob out of pity. I am getting cramps in my stomach from the laughs I am holding back.
"All my daughter wants before she dies is to meet Margaret Kent," the Pillar says. "This document here is permission to meet her." He shows the document sideways to everyone.
Nobody cares about checking its authenticity but the guard. When he does, I wheel myself closer to him. "Pleath, mithter." I reach out my marionette hands again, and cough marshmallows on his legs. The guard backs off and starts to radio someone inside the building.
"Didn't you see us on TV?" the Pillar says. "Margaret Kent promised to see my daughter. I know Margaret Kent is a good woman. She would never let us down, right?" The Pillar is talking to the sympathetic crowd. They nod. Pity does wonders.
A daughter of one of the observing women is licking an ice cream. I turn the wheel and stretch out my hand. "Aith kreem!"
"I'm sorry, madam," the Pillar says. "My daughter hasn't seen a cone this big before. You mind giving it to her?"
The woman kindly asks her daughter to give me the cone. The Pillar snatches it from her and gives it to me as we turn to face the guards. Actually, he splashes it onto my cheeks, so I look totally miserable now.
The men and women in suits start complaining about not being able to enter the building because I am blocking it. "She's got Jub Jub disease!" they yell at the guards. "And we have an important meeting we need to attend."
"I heard Jub Jub disease is lethal," a man in a suit and tie declares.
"Pleath mithter." I roll toward the man. "I want to kith the Ducheth." I spit out marshmallows and cherry ice cream.
A senior guard appears from inside and orders the guards to let us in. "We're not going to waste all day on this," he yells at them. "Let them in."
"Thank you." I reach for him. The man jumps away from me.
The Pillar cries tears of happiness that we're going to see Margaret Kent and rolls me inside. I have to admit; insanity is so much fun.
39
WESTMINSTER PALACE
Inside, the receptionist tries to contact Margaret Kent to confirm our meeting, but my continued vomiting of marshmallows forces them to give us space. The Pillar shows them our fake IDs, and they let us into the nearest bathroom—which we detour from, of course.
The Pillar wheels me into the nearest elevator and tells me he knows exactly where to find the Duchess. He pulls out a hookah hose he had hidden inside the wheelchair and flashes a smile like a four-year-old. I grimace when I see him pull small parts from the hookah inside my wheelchair, too. He starts connecting them together, like Legos.
"Killers usually put together a gun in this part of the movie," I mock him, wondering why we're so compatible when it comes to lunacy.
"They don't call me 'Pilla da Killa' for nothing, Alice," he says, fitting the last part in. "I advise you to suspend disbelief because everything you'll see right now is going to be beyond crazy." I watch the elevator's counter rising until the elevator finally stops. "Smile," the Pillar says. "It's showtime." He wheels me into the corridors against all kinds of guards, who've been told about us coming in. A guard points his gun at us, but the Pillar whips him with his hose, blood spattering on the wall. Things start to get messy.
"You didn't have to hurt him," I protest.
"Put your morals in your back pocket please, and get them out later." He puffs smoke from his hookah and then breathes it back into the hall in great amounts. The smoke spreads all over the corridors. "I have a job to do," he pants.
People start coughing at first, some already fainting because of his wondrous smoke. A little later, smoke puts a couple of guards to sleep instantly, the rest start laughing hysterically. Instead of attacking us, they can't stop laughing till their stomachs hurt.
"Is that laughing gas?" I say.
The Pillar doesn't answer me, and high-fives a happy guard instead, right before he kicks him to the ground.
"Why am I not affected by the smoke?" I ask. I feel like a spoiled kid rolled into a crazy funhouse.
"It's the marshmallows I fed you, baby doll." The Pillar kicks Margaret's door open and wheels me in. "It's an antidote."
I am not sure how to feel about being wheeled around by a killer. Am I really doing this to save a girl, or am I just a mad girl giving myself all the excuses in the world? The Pillar doesn't kill anyone with his surreal weapons. He wounds and sedates them on our way to Margaret. I do believe the Cheshire now, saying this Wonderland War is larger than anyone thinks. I don't even know what the war is about. All my thoughts are messed up again.
The Pillar doesn't stop puffing or hitting guards with his hose. I am wheeling myself next to him by now.
"Can we just not hurt everyone we meet?" I plead as I pant, wheeling the chair—I am so caught up in the moment that I forget I can walk and leave the chair behind.
"The Real Alice wouldn't say that," the ruthless Pillar says, hitting numbers on a pad near a golden double door. "You think those are innocent people?" The door opens, and he wheels me in.
40
Pillar the Killer closes the door behind us and locks it by hitting certain code numbers on the keypad on the inside wall. He turns around and stares at the woman sitting behind her luxurious desk. She is clinging to the sides of her chair. I can see a great view of the River Thames through the glass behind her. Once she recognizes the Pillar, she is sweating—the way I did when I was in shock therapy.
"Long time no see, Duchess." The Pillar spreads his hands. Something suddenly smells. It's his armpits. He sniffs them, and he blushes slightly when looking at me. "I guess I overplayed my part."
"Listen, Carter," the Duchess says in a challenging voice. I don't like her, but she doesn't look like a weak woman. If only the Pillar hadn't taken her by surprise. "Whatever you want, I can give you."
"Did I say you can talk?" The Pillar races up to her and grabs her by the neck. Again, for a short man, his agility is superhuman. "This isn't the Parliament of the United Kingdom anymore. It's the Pillar's one-man Parliament. Welcome to my surreal democracy." He feeds her marshmallows and forces her to swallow them so she'll stay immune to his smoke for a while. Then he pulls the hose and wraps it around her neck, almost choking her as he fixes the hookah somehow on the desk. The hose is wickedly long. He pulls it far enough and sits on a chair facing her. Then he notices a rocking chair nearby and decides to sit on it. All this time, the Duchess is choking on the hose snaking around her neck.
"We have three minutes before the guards unlock your door," the Pillar tells her. "So here is the deal. I will ask you questions. You will answer them. And I'll go away." The Duchess nods, hanging on to the hose in case he pulls harder. "If you lie to me, I will choke you to death, Margaret. It's an easy question. Where can I find the Cheshire?"
"I…" The Duchess's eyes beg for slack around her neck. The Pillar loosens his hose a little. "I truly don't know."
"I never trust anyone who says 'truly,' 'believe me,' or 'deeply.'" The Pillar doesn't pull, but he takes a drag from his hookah. It still has some pressure on the Duchess's neck.
"Believe me, I don't." She reaches out her arm. "Is that Alice?" She points at me.
"No," the Pillar says. "That's an insane underage girl with acne, angst, and parental issues. I am eloping with her. Now, answer the question. When was the last time you saw the Cheshire?"
"You know this is an absurd question," she says, glancing at me. The Pillar pulls on the hose, and she diverts her gaze to him. There is something they both don't want me to know about the Cheshire. I wonder what it is. "The Cheshire is a master of disguise."
"He is not a master of anything." I sense envy in the Pillar's voice.
"He wasn't walking around in a grinning cat's mask, for God's sake," the Duchess grunts against the hose. "I've never even seen his face since he's transformed from a cat to a human."
"But you know him when you see him," Pillar says. "Can you tell me why he is killing those girls? What's gotten into him?"
"I'd like to know that myself. Believe me, I would. All I know is that he reappeared two years ago and approached me. It was the first time I'd seen him since Carroll trapped the monsters in Wonderland. So I thought he'd make a good assassin. I send him the missions by email, pay with wire transfers. That's all."
"See?" The Pillar turns to me. "The government people fund assassins from Wonderland. Even Lewis Carroll couldn't have thought of that." He pulls the hose harder, looking back at the Duchess.
I am speechless. The world outside is a mess. I remind myself that the Pillar told me that, from now on, I need to suspend disbelief. It's funny that I have to do this in a sane world. Did the Duchess just say that Lewis Carroll locked the Wonderland Monsters away?
The Pillar takes a long drag. The Duchess's face begins to turn blue.
"Wait." She raises her hand. "I remember one last thing. I thought it was trivial, but it rings a bell now."
"I am listening."
"Three months ago, the Cheshire emailed me, asking for some of Lewis Carroll's vintage photos," she says. I remind myself Lewis was a photographer. "Photos of girls, specifically."
"More than fifty percent of Lewis's photos were girls," the Pillar says. I didn't know that. "Young girls, to be precise." Now, that sounds a bit weird to me.
"I know, but the Cheshire had a list of names. Seven girls," the Duchess says. "You know that Lewis's work has never been collected properly in one volume, so the Cheshire asked me to use my connections and get him the photos."
"And you didn't think that might have anything to do with the killing spree he is on?" I feel the need to interfere.
"Sane folks, baby doll." The Pillar barely tilts his head toward me. "They love to look away from reason. It's a common symptom." He turns back to the Duchess. "What happened after you got him the photos?"
"He disappeared. A week later, the killings started," the Duchess says. "The reason why I dismissed this incident is that the names of the dead girls didn't match the girls in the photos."
"Of course they don't match," I say. "The girls Lewis photographed lived a hundred and fifty years ago. They are dead."
"Still, there has to be a connection," the Pillar says. "How many girls has he kidnapped so far?"
"Six killed. Constance is the seventh," I say. Poor Constance. I'm sitting here with these mad Wonderlanders, unable to help her.
"It means if we don't save Constance, we might never find him again. I assume she is the last on the list," the Pillar says, then asks the Duchess for the list of names. She writes them down, still tilting her neck awkwardly, then asks him to let her live. "This isn't enough, Duchess. It's all too vague," the Pillar says. "Give me something better than this. A lead I can follow once I leave this office."
"I have a lead," she says, but her eyes show her reluctance to speak. "I know someone who knows about the Cheshire's origins. But I doubt she will want to talk to you."
The Pillar grimaces. I assume he's never had a problem forcing people to talk. "Who'd that person be? And it's a 'she'?"
"It's the White Queen."
41
"Who is the White Queen?" I ask the Pillar, but he ignores me. I can sense he's uncomfortable talking about her. There is an indecipherable look in his eyes. All I can interpret is that he highly respects her.
"The White Queen. The chess Queen. The one in Through the Looking Glass," the Duchess replies on his behalf. She seems angry with me.
"Why would the White Queen know about the Cheshire's origins?" the Pillar asks.
"At some point in Wonderland, he confessed certain things to her. You know how charming she can be when you're down and out." The Duchess definitely hates the White Queen, too.
I watch the Pillar think about the White Queen a breath too long. It's as if he is staring into a memory. A memory so relaxing, he loosens his grip on the hose. Who is the White Queen? I'm so eager to know.
The digital pad on the wall starts to buzz, and the timer counts down.
"We have no time," the Pillar says. "The guards are on their way, and I'm not into spilling sane people's blood today." He approaches the Duchess. "I'll let you go. But if I learn that you lied to me, I'm going to make you as ugly as you were in Wonderland."
"I am telling the truth. Believe me," she pleads. I can't help but wonder what the Duchess has done to become pretty if she had been ugly in Wonderland.
"One more thing before I go," the Pillar says. "I have a brother. No need for names. Just look him up. He's been to Afghanistan. He lost his arm. He came back and lost his wife, his kids, his dog, his house, and his job. Thanks to the likes of you, he is a drug addict now."
"I'm truly sorry." The Duchess lays a hand on her heart.
"I told you not to use the word 'truly.'" He grabs her by her neck. "I want you to help him."
"All right, all right. That's doable," she says. "We'll get him a job, extra money, insurance, and a big-screen TV. We can get him a young Russian wife if you like. Anything."
> I wonder how many lives the Duchess has messed with. Who does she think she is?
"I'm thinking something more elegant. He's my only brother, and I love him." The Pillar rubs his chin. The word "love" coming out of his mouth makes me cringe. "I want him to be a tennis player. In fact, the greatest tennis player in the world. Make him win Wimbledon next year."
"I'm not God. I can't do that," she protests. "He's lost his arm, for God's sake."
"It's about time a one-armed man wins something," the Pillar says. "You're the government. You promise people you can do anything."
42
We escape the Duchess's room through a secret emergency door that leads to underground tunnels. It seems Parliament has been prepared for an apocalypse beforehand. The Duchess let the Pillar punch her in the face so she could pretend we'd attacked her before she could even see what we looked like.
The Pillar's limousine, driven by that short dude who looks like a rat, picks us up around the corner. The Pillar shoves me inside and tells me not to ask any questions until we leave London. I'm tired and lay my head to rest for a while.
About two hours later, we reach Oxford. The chauffeur informs the Pillar that we're being followed.
"Who is following us?" I turn to look behind us.
"The Reds," the chauffeur says.
"Who are the Reds?"
"No time for questions," the Pillar says. "Stop the car!" Again, he doesn't call his chauffeur by name.
The limousine stops, and the Pillar drags me out while we're still dressed as mad homeless people.
"Hurry, Alice. We really have no time for the Reds right now." The Pillar walks me to the nearest bus station, and we hop on the first public transportation we come to.